


It's Written on My Face

by NoNameWriter



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Angst, M/M, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Soulmates, Tobio Needs a Hug, VOLLEYBALL NERDS, soulmate markings
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-25
Updated: 2017-02-04
Packaged: 2018-09-19 23:17:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 10,557
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9464885
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NoNameWriter/pseuds/NoNameWriter
Summary: When you're little, your markings are shapeless blobs of color-- innocent, uneducated, happy, excited colors. When you get a little older, a little wiser, your markings take on shapes and symbols that mean something to you, things that reflect your soul. You end up with dozens of them, hundreds throughout your life really, spelling out your personality and exposing your soul on your skin for the whole world to see. Everyone is different, no one can hide.It makes finding your soulmate easy: your colors suit theirs. Your shapes spell out your love, sometimes literally writing it on your forehead so it's impossible to miss, and impossible to hide from someone your heart belongs to....Kageyama Tobio always knew something was wrong with him. He never had more than five markings before entering Karasuno High School, and they just didn't ever change.In a world where your soul is visible for everyone to see, how is someone entirely blank supposed to survive?...(In other words: someone give Kageyama a hug, I'm so cruel to him)





	1. Tracks of Absent Tears

Kageyama wasn’t sure when it happened, since he didn’t really look in the mirror very often when he was younger. It just didn’t seem important to him, what he looked like beyond that his cloths were sort of presentable for the day, so beyond glancing in the mirror beside his wardrobe to make sure he didn’t have a huge stain on his shirt before he went to good that day, he didn’t really look at his own reflection. He somehow never managed to look up at his own face, for at least long enough to distort the memory and cause him to be unsure about when exactly it happened.

One day though, after his alarm had gone off and he’d dragged himself out of bed and to the bathroom, sleepily going about the motions of taking a shower and combing his hair, groggily brushing his teeth, he just so happened to focus on the mirror in front of him while mindlessly running his toothbrush back and forth in his mouth.

He’d blinked, and let the toothbrush fall to the sink, momentarily forgotten.

Markings were a fact of life, but children his age typically had some nonsensical, colorful shapes splotched carelessly over their skin to expression innocence, a lack of knowledge, and an excitement for life. It wasn’t until you were older and had concepts of symbols and meanings behind shapes and colors that one’s heart started developing recognizable pictures for the world to see, like how his PE teacher had a baseball image over his wrist or his art teacher had a rainbow with a beautiful sakura tree blossoming down her left arm when she wore a sleeveless dress. You’re body didn’t just know those things from birth, you had to experience it and understand them and eventually your body reflected what was influencing you for the day or the month or so on. Like how his art teacher’s tree was sometimes covered in snow during the winter instead of blossoming in the summer and spring months.

Being as young as he was, still in grade school and not even technically old enough to join a sport without a parent’s consent form, he didn’t really expect any surprise marking for at least another two years. He had a notably small amount of markings compared to the other kids in his class, with only washed-out black and purple blotches circling around his wrists and ankles, and a blurry pale-green circle over his heart that had no real meaning. Concrete markings that made pictures only started forming once you hit middle school, or so that’s what he was told.

But the deep, navy blue lines that pooled thinly under his bottom lashes and curved outwards to the edges of his eyes, spilling down in two eerily familiar streaks down his cheeks and curled under his chin, but ending just before his neck, were definitely not nonsensical shapes. No, he was fairly certain those markings meant something.

And they looked a lot like tear tracks.

000

Looking back, it was easy why he hadn’t noticed his first real marks before he did. It wasn’t really polite to comment on others’ markings, so obviously his teachers never bothered bringing it up, and while children didn’t really follow the same social rules, Kageyama didn’t exactly have many friends his age who would’ve bothered commenting on the sudden change of his face.

He was never bullied really, and he wasn’t ever picked last when playing games because he was actually really talented at sports, but when the game ended the other kids in his class would disperse, and he would go off on his own to practice with the ball more, or wander around the play yard curiously. It never occurred to him to ask any of the other kids to play, and it seemed it never occurred to anyone else to invite him to play either. He didn’t like the actual class part of school much, so he tended to zone out or struggle along with his work by himself, which meant he didn’t really have any class friends either. He just had nothing to talk about with anyone else, so he didn’t say anything.

His dad had been away on business since before Kageyama was even born, so he was told. He’d met the man a couple times, but it didn’t really matter to him much. By the time he got his second mark, he’d realized something must have been wrong with him when he was born, because his mother and younger sister lived in Tokyo, and it never occurred to him to ask why he lived on his own out in the middle of a much smaller town, a couple hours train ride from where his mother and sibling lived. One night, when his mother had called to check up on him, he’s asked.

_“Oh Tobio, don’t pay it much mind. Focus on volleyball, ok? You still love to play, don’t you?”_

_“But why does Rin live with you and not here?”_

_“Rin is going to take over the family business and needs a little more stricter upbringing than you do, that’s all. You’re more than capable of taking care of yourself though, aren’t you?”_

_“Yes mother.” He’s relented easily, bending to her will painlessly. “I can’t help with the family business? I don’t even know what it is.”_

_“It’s a family business dear. You had no markings at all when you were born, and your father and I never formed any for you either. It wouldn’t make sense, would it?”_

_It wouldn’t make sense. The first markings you ever got were supposed to represent your family, more importantly, your parents—especially your mother. Mother and child were supposed to have identical markings for the first ten years of a child’s life, until they formed a picture to clearly represent what their parents meant to them, and then the parent’s marking would shift as their child developed a more adult personality to more clearly define the relationship. Typically family markings were iterations of each other, or similar in some way. Family crests and family-run business logos were often created off of the markings families shared with each other._

_There must have been something wrong with him, if even as a newborn his mother hadn’t meant enough to him for even a shapeless marking._

_“No mother.”_

That night, after he’d fallen asleep, he got his second mark: the shapeless blotches of ink-like color over his wrists turned a dull metallic silver, and formed solid lines the width of his pinky finger, almost like bracelets.

He called them shackles.

000

His last year of grade school Kageyama got his third marking, just about the time most of his classmates were exploding with dozens of markings all over their bodies taking clearer and clearer shape rather than just a cacophony of meaningless colors.

He’d liked volleyball more than any other sport they’d played in gym class or at recess, and already he’d spent a lot of his nights with the TV on in the background, playing the sports channel—with volleyball his most often target. That year, the older students were allowed to pursue their own sports in preparation to really get into it in middle school, giving them a leg-up on at least learning some basics and techniques before being launched into a more competitive world with their new schools. If a kid found a passion in a certain sport, his grade school believed choosing the right middle school was important, so they developed a mini-club system to get everyone exposed early.

Immediately, Kageyama fell in love with volleyball even more than he already was. He took to the practice court with gusto, having watched the people on TV play for a couple years now, and already familiar with the feel of the ball in his hand, since it was what he chose to play with during his time alone out in the school yard.

The teachers supervising and coaching them in their different pursuits had been amazed. He’d gone right up to Kageyama and told him he was a natural, a genius even.

He’d felt his chest swell in an emotion he’d never had before. No adult had ever said something so… _positive_ , to him before. His classmates had looked at him in awe when they heard the teacher say that, and a couple came up and asked him to show them what he’d done with the ball, spending time trying to copy him curiously. As they worked and he played with the ball for their entertainment, to the sound of their ‘ _ooh’s_ and ‘ _ahh’s_ and the occasional clumsy applause _,_ the emotion tripled until he felt like he couldn’t breathe.

He got home from school that day feeling shaken and weird, but oddly… light. Like his head was going to bump the ceiling if he wasn’t careful.

That night he discovered the shapeless green blur over his heart had transformed into what was unmistakably a volleyball—only it was chiseled in perfect detail, as if the ball were made of solid emerald.

He never forgot the feeling, and he couldn’t wait to get back on the court.

000

He didn’t get a single new marking until almost the very end of middle school.

The school nurse was alarmed when he’d come in for a headache and questioned after his notable lack of markings compared to everyone else his age, but he figured there was just something wrong with him. He’d already known that since… well, it seemed like he’d always known there was something wrong. Everyone formed markings in middle school, but these years were the years that they changed the most since young teen’s personalities were so impressionable and fickle. Almost every week his classmates would come in with pretty much entirely different markings from the week before—things just changed depending on what they fancied or hated that week, or even that day. Some girls could even change their colors on purpose to match their outfits or their hair or something.

Kageyama’s did not change. They were unwavering, set in stone.

He figured it was just another feature of whatever was wrong with him, of whatever genetic defect he’d been born with that refused to let him develop markings.

His mostly blank skin earned him some weird looks, especially on the volleyball court since they wore t-shirts and shorts. Everyone around him was a loud orchestra of colors, nearly from their heads to their toes, considering they were at the age that teens were confused and conflicted and blurted out everything they thought and felt on their skin, turning them into weird chameleons. Even during a practice the colors would shift to show their weariness, or their shaken resolve to stay in the club considering the time commitment and pressure their powerhouse school demanded, but then a quick pep-talk from their coach and brighter colors would come flooding back.

His lack of markings put people off, even his coach, since it was nearly impossible to tell what he was thinking or feeling if his markings never showed or changed. He found it useful during matches, as his opponents were pretty much just too scared of him to really give an honest go at trying to confront him head-on.

How did you tackle an opponent you literally had no clue how to handle? An enigma, an unknown?

Something _inhuman,_ really.

His teammates gave him the wariest looks, as they changed together before practice. They knew more than anyone how blank he was, with literally only three markings (even if one was a set), but the fact the one over his chest was a remarkable looking volleyball, they couldn’t doubt his strength and passion for the game at least.

That was how the world worked, Kageyama had realized. Officially, only good grades earned and medals won measured success, but if you had musical notes over your hand, you were considered a passionate musician. If you had sun on your neck, you were a bright, talkative person. If you had glasses marks around your eyes despite no need of them, you were a studious student.

So on and so forth.

No one knew what to make of the marks on his face or his wrists and ankles, but everyone knew he loved volleyball. Everyone knew he was _good_ at volleyball, and no one dared comment otherwise.

But he still got the looks, especially standing between five other billboards of color and he was just… blank.

Empty.

Unreadable, since his life and soul wasn’t spelled out on his skin for the world to see.

By the second year of middle school, the looks shifted into something a little more… cold. By the time you were a second year on the team, you’d supposedly developed a love of the team, a pride in the school, and sense of belonging to your teammates on your side of the net. Everyone in his year had developed blue flags on their arms, the unofficial symbol of their team (mainly because that was what the third years had and therefore what was associated with their school) and they were typically in visible places for playing volleyball—i.e., spikers had them on their palms, setters wrapped around their fingers, receivers on their forearms, etc. It wasn’t uncommon for sports teams to develop those markings; after all, if you got into the game and was proud of your team, it was hard to avoid.

Kageyama was not surprised at all when he didn’t spot a blue flag anywhere on his body even by the mid-point of his second year, and when asked by one of his senpai, he’d given the negative answer pretty bluntly. It was just his personality to spit out the truth, or at least his honest opinion, after all.

Immediately he’d realized his mistake when he caught sight of the looks the whole locker room gave him after saying that. It just wasn’t that big a deal to him—his markings never changed and never grew and he didn’t expect them to at this point, not because he didn’t care but because there was something physically _wrong_ with him, but to his team… he could’ve sworn it looked like betrayal in their eyes.

He tried not to let it get to him, to be ignorant or above it all. His utter lack of markings had defined his life for as long as he could remember, but his genetic deficiency couldn’t interrupt his love for volleyball, of that much he was sure. He decided it didn’t matter and ignored the topic every time it was brought up, and didn’t look at anyone’s markings if he could help it, much less his own.

Looking back, that was a mistake.

Markings were the essence of one’s soul, spelled out on your body for everyone to see. The more prominent the placing, the more the deepest corner of your heart wanted to express it to the world. The hands and face were the most drastic places, so seeing something being literally written on someone’s forehead meant they wanted you to see it and pay attention and maybe act or react or _something._

But Kageyama never reacted. He never reached out or asking someone about a part of their soul; he never bothered to even look.

The slight divide between him and the rest of the world got bigger. And bigger.

And bigger still.

He didn’t know who said it first, but he remembered the moment Kindaichi called him “King” to his face. It had been during their first practice match of his third year of middle school.

_“What a royal toss from a King.” He’d said right after a play. Kageyama turned his head to look at him curiously, a bit confused by the slight agreeing mutters from the back line behind him. He didn’t see the problem—they’d just scored a point after all and he was focusing on what tactic he should use for the next play, but…_

_…the tone in which he’d said it made Kageyama pay attention._

_“A King?” One of the brand new first years from the sidelines perked up, interested. “I get it, so Kageyama-senpai is the King of the Court!”_

_Kindaichi chuckled, but Kageyama felt a tremor over his skin at the scoffing nature it had to it. “Sure, King of the Court.” He agreed, catching the other team’s attention. Slightly under his breath though: “That was an egocentric toss though, wasn’t it Kageyama-san? I couldn’t get there in time to spike it.”_

_Tobio leaned back from him slightly, eyes narrowing. “It was an acceptable toss; you just have to get there quicker!” he would’ve been blocked if the toss was even a second slower, after all. Didn’t he know that? Couldn’t he see the timing the middle blockers across from them were perfect at?_

_His answer was obviously the wrong one though, judging by the dry look he received._

_“Yeah, definitely a King.”_

And so had begun his reign as an egocentric King.

He didn’t understand what he was doing wrong, and looking back, despite knowing it was mainly his fault, he still couldn’t help but feel a little nettled about how his team had treated him. Sure, he was a socially inept abnormality without markings, but up until he was benched, no one had ever doubted his authority on volleyball before. Volleyball had been the _one_ thing in his life where it didn’t matter if he had markings or not, because the one clear marking he had proved to everyone that he was right when it came to getting the ball over the net.

It had never mattered, his faults, when it came to volleyball.

And then suddenly it did.

Suddenly he was unfit to be a captain or even a _player_ because he just didn’t fit in anymore—or ever, really. No one bothered to try and get to know him without using markings as the usual ice-breaker. Sure, he didn’t try to get to know anyone else either, but he couldn’t help but feel a little hopeless at the realization that whatever was wrong with him would continue to curse him for the rest of his life.

The animosity on his team had mounted and mounted until it finally snapped at the end of his third year championship game, and they’d finally officially kicked him off the court. That entire year his skin was crawling and the hairs on the back of his neck wouldn’t lie down with the eyes and sly remarks he got from every corner of the school—at practice, in the hall, in his classes, during games. It was like people were staring unabashedly at his skin as if trying to figure out how someone could end up so deformed and wrong, wondering to themselves and whispering to each other theories about how he was even human.

The only thing that distracted him from his year-long state of paranoia, was when one day he reached for a pencil on his desk and realized he had another mark—a pale orange bird on his palm just below his pointer finger. It was slightly smaller than his fingernail, just a silhouette with no detail at all, more of an outline really, and it blended into his darker skin pretty effectively, but he was sure it was a mark.

And then when his shock wore off, he quickly ignored it, realizing he knew exactly what—or should he say _who—_ had inspired it and it kind of ticked him off more than a little bit. The anger fueled him for a full week until he could return to being properly apathetic about it.

Markings meant nothing to him, after all. He told himself that a hundred times a day and he believed it.

His resolve held, right up until he saw the crown, and then it started to waver a bit.  

The first time he saw a crown on one of his teammates he nearly ran out of the gym from the shivers it sent up his spine. It was only the size of a coin, but it was colored in rich reds, yellows, blacks, and whites, and so searingly painting onto their skin it looked like they’d been branded—the crowns looked painful and fierce.

They complained he pushed them too hard, but he didn’t care, he only cared about playing and playing better. The crowns started showing up like bruises after those harsh practices, and fading away after a couple days just a similarly. Soon the whole team had them, sometimes underneath their blue flags too—and those never seemed to go away.

Once he was benched though, looking back up as they played on without him—he didn’t see a single crown.

The crowns were his clue, he supposed, that he needed to change. They were the warning that he needed to pay attention to others’ markings even if he didn’t have any of his own. But still he stubbornly stuck to his guns and refused to give them validation, refusing to believe that someone needed markings to navigate this world successfully.

He should have paid attention.

But then, all of a sudden, it was too late.

The ball dropped, and no one was there.

That night he stood under the shower until the water had turned cold and still he didn’t feel it. He was shaking like a leaf from the chill when he finally got out, numbly shaking the water from his hair as if he were a zombie simply pretending to be a live human and going about the motions someone living might do.

He glanced around, blankly looking for his towel and caught sight of his reflection in the mirror as he bent down to pick up his discarded shirt in front of him.

Immediately he shot back up and spun around, his mouth dropping a little to see the red lines haphazardly crisscrossing over his back in a deep, blood-red color with pitch black accents. He could’ve sworn for a second he was actually bleeding they looked so… _real_.

Like… slash marks.

Once he managed to tear his gaze from them, he realized his own face had also changed, and he slowly faced the mirror properly to stare at himself with wide, shell-shocked eyes.

There was another line next to his original tear tracks, now there were four in total traced down his cheeks, the new lines seeming to spill from the very corner of his eyes, closer to his ears this time. The color was a more shimmery navy blue too, if he wasn’t imagining it, so they really looked like rippling water now.

His heart skipped a beat when his gaze drifted to his chest though, and he looked down sharply.

His emerald was cracked.


	2. Topaz

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things get worse. 
> 
> And then they get better.

The first day of high school was better, Kageyama decided. 

His uniform covered pretty much everything, the long jacket sleeves managing to hide the markings on his wrists and the markings on his face making up for the fact there was nothing showing on his hands. He thought that most of his classmates were more preoccupied with their first day at a new school rather than wondering too deeply about what the quiet kid in the back of the class may or may not be hiding under their uniforms, which was comforting. 

By that same token, he didn't have to watch warily around him for crowns, since it quickly became apparent no one cared about volleyball enough to recognize him by sight. Even if someone did, the uniforms really helped in giving him an excuse not to pay much mind to the people around him. 

He'd made a promise to himself over break to actually try and take note of the markings around him more, but it wasn't just something he could change overnight. He knew his luck would run out the second he walked into the volleyball club, but for the actual school day he felt a little relieved that the school wanted them to focus more on their studies than their markings in designing their uniforms. 

He was thankful to find their athletic uniforms had a long-sleeve version as well, and quickly donned the red cardigan and black sports pants before anyone else got to the club room, hoping he could stand the heat at least until he got onto the team before he had to expose himself. 

Of course, he had no such luck.

000

"Straighten your arms, dumbass!" He found himself yelling in the early morning light three days later to a short orange-haired volleyball-maniac. It was too quiet to be yelling, he knew, but there was no one around for even early club activities and Hinata was getting on his last nerve. For has naturally talented as he was, he was absolutely hopeless when it came to technique. 

Hinata was drenched in sweat and breathing hard from where he’d been running full-out for the past hour to practice receiving the balls Kageyama was hitting at him. Still, even as his arms seemed to shake from the exertion, he got back into a semi-crouched position and held his arms as his unwilling teacher instructed him.

“One more!” He shouted right back, a fire lit up in his eyes.

Kageyama felt his eye twitch in something like annoyance, but it might’ve been something else. Whatever it was, he slammed the ball across the grassy field they were practicing in as full force, and it nearly tossed Hinata clean off his feet. He didn’t complain though, he just went running after the errant ball.

He took a steadying breath, trying to center himself, but he had no idea what was even wrong with him in order to go about fixing it.

_“You! What are **you** doing here!?”_

He’d been so startled… and then, to slowly turn and see that shock of orange hair lit up against the afternoon light behind him…

It was like a ghost from his past. He’d felt shaken, pale and withdrawn since that moment, no matter how hard he tried to push it from his mind. His simple world was rocked like a cruise ship in a storm, and he felt oddly seasick.

Before Hinata could return he glanced down at his palm, scowling a little at the orange bird who was no longer sitting placidly below his pointer finger, but had its wings outstretched like it was mid-flight between both his pointer and middle finger now. The color was darker too, more concrete than the washed out tint it’d been before, and he didn’t think it was the early morning sunlight just beginning to peak over the mountain behind him that was playing tricks on his eyes either.

He tried to ignore it, but it was his dominant hand and the one he used to hit the ball. He felt like his palm was itching or burning every time he thought about it, making his mind flicker in the second before it made contact with the ball in the air, and it sort of pissed him off. He _would_ be pissed if this distraction ended up ruining his form.

“What’s with that horrible face?”

Kageyama jerked his head up, letting his palm drop and wiping whatever expression Hinata was commenting on off his face. “Nothing.” He intoned blankly.

The orange-haired twerp cocked a brow at him, spinning the ball distractedly in his hands. “You’re in an even worse mood than usual and I didn’t think that was possible.” He declared bluntly.

The setter scowled down at him.

Hinata grinned wickedly right back.

“You know, you’re an asshole. But I think I like you.”

 _That_ threw him off. He felt his scowl melt into something like shock, a crippling warmth seeping into the bottom of his lungs unpleasantly.

“What?” He blinked cleverly.

Hinata giggled lightly. “You really don’t care about anything but volleyball! I don’t either, so it’s kind of funny. I don’t have to think up small talk about things I don’t care about—not that you’d even listen or care if I did.” He rolled his eyes, pinning the ball between his knees to free his arms as he stretched them above his head, joints cracking and sweat glistening in the creeping morning light. “People like to talk about markings a lot too, but you haven’t even mentioned them in all the time we’ve been working together, which is really weird but kind of nice. I’m so tired of talking about markings already, I just want to play volleyball.” He complained to himself mostly, as if he was talking for his own benefit and Kageyama happened to be there.

All Kageyama could do was stare at him.

“Well!” Hinata shook his mini-break off and tossed the ball back into the air. “We have to make it onto the team first! One more!” He cried, any trace of weariness gone just like that with the renewal of whatever insane internal drive pushed him to work at 100% every single moment of the day.

The setter almost missed the ball he was so caught up in his numb daze.

Almost.

They went back to working, setting and spiking and serving and receiving until Hinata slowly, inch by inch, began making a tiny little progress in how horrible he was at receiving the ball. Just before people started arriving at the school grounds for early morning club activities, they even managed a decent volley in which Hinata was able to keep the ball up for several hits and return it back to Kageyama without letting it hit the ground. It was the basics that every player should’ve been able to do in their sleep at this point in their career, so he was loath to call it actual ‘progress’, but at the very least Hinata was very slowly becoming more than just a freak ball of energy and athleticism on the court. That sort of power with zero skill was useless to everyone, including Hinata himself, and especially the driven setter who was _not_ about to let this chance of playing volleyball for the next three years pass him by just because his stupid partner in crime here didn’t even know the first thing about playing his beloved game.

But still.

Hinata’s words seemed to ring in his brain like an undercurrent to every motion he made while they practiced. Eventually his heart stopped hurting as it beat and he could focus entirely on the ball in front of him once more, but… in some small corner of his mind, the corner that was best at multitasking, he stewed over it until the hairs on the back of his neck tingled from anxiety and he felt the tension in his shoulders affecting his serves.

He just didn’t know what to make of the tiny fellow volleyball-maniac in front of him.

Nothing made sense.

His chest felt stuffy and light at the same time, which was both confusing and welcome and uncomfortable all in one. He felt relieved that Hinata was not interested in talking about markings but also slightly ticked that the boy took something Kageyama had always lacked so for granted. His amazing athleticism and utter lack of skill also ticked him off.

Learning that Hinata had been the only volleyball player in his middle school… explained some of it… but not enough.

I mean, that’s what he kept telling himself.

It wasn’t an excuse!

And yet… Kageyama wondered what the emerald on his chest would have looked like if he’d always been alone on the court, instead of simply ending up that way.

It made him wonder, just for a second, what sort of markings Hinata had from that experience, but he killed that thought before it could even properly form.

He reminded himself forcefully that he didn’t care.

Except that… wasn’t that how he’d ended up tossing to no one?

Alone?

He clenched his teeth so hard they might’ve cracked if he landed after a jump incorrectly, but it couldn’t be helped as he fought down the feeling of tigers clawing their way up his throat. The setter drew in a long breath to still his racing thoughts for a second in between tossing for Hinata, before looking up from the ball in his hands to the boy across from him in the grassy field.

He looked.

And got angry.

He tossed the ball high in the air and served it as hard as he could, watching Hinata cry out in surprise, trip and stumble from the force of the ball hitting his arms at the wrong angle, dropping to the ground for the hundredth time that morning and cursing quietly from his failure. He was right back up though, chasing after the ball hurriedly.

Kageyama steamed.

It pissed him off that the guy had so much talent and wasted it. It pissed him off that he had markings and didn’t care. It pissed him off that there was an orange bird on his hand and that somehow _this_ moronic, over-eager, overly optimistic dork had earned one of the precious few markings Kageyama had ever had. It pissed him off that Hinata didn’t know and probably wouldn’t care about it either.

But what pissed him off the most was that… Hinata was sort of beautiful.

Not that he cared or noticed or ever considering looking at anyone—boy or girl, young or old, big or small— before this metaphorical new leaf he was trying to turn over. He didn’t even know what made someone beautiful or ugly in the traditional, or even non-traditional, sense. He’d never paid attention or cared about that stuff: he figured most people were brainwashed by commercials but honestly he’d tuned them out quite effectively when his brain was constantly wired for volleyball, and waiting for the volleyball he watched on TV to come back on instead of whatever products or services all the commercials and ads he’d seen in his life were trying to convince him he wanted.

Acknowledging another’s presence was a new concept for him. Forget letting his eyes stray to their markings, as he wasn’t nearly ready to make that jump just yet, but even looking at someone physically and not just how they spoke or came across was an entirely new experience.

Speaking to someone with the half-hearted attempt to get to know them on some level was like another language.

But he had to start somewhere, and Hinata already hated him, so even if he messed it up there was no love lost.

He was… safe.

And the setter hated that he’d been unwillingly getting used to the carrot-top’s presence over the past couple days, letting himself open up a little more and practice these things he’d never had to worry about before.

And that morning’s conversation seemed to shake off what little hesitation he had left.

So, for the rest of the week Kageyama used the shorter boy as practice for his budding social skills, awkwardly trying to bring up conversations when they rested between practicing— although they always seemed to return back to volleyball since he didn’t really know much about anything else. Luckily, Hinata didn’t seem to _care_ about anything else, and wasn’t put off by it, but eagerly babbled endlessly after just a little prompting on the setter’s part. As the week went on and they racked up dozens of hours spent alone working together, Kageyama found himself trying to branch out a little more in his attempt to be more open, by acknowledging Hinata as a person in front of him too.

By looking at him.

 _Really_ looking at him, in a way he didn’t really look at anyone, ever.

And since he was socially inept with volleyball always on the brain, he found himself considering the orange-haired boy in terms of volleyball instead of anything else like personality or looks.

And in volleyball terms, Hinata was beautiful.

His receives were shit and holy hell don’t ask him to set, but he moved easily across the ground as he raced here and there when he dropped the ball, his head tilted back and eyes focused precisely on the ball in the air as it arched high into the sky and came down towards him—or his body was drawn forward like a snake to a snake charmer’s song when he realized it was out of his range, as if his very soul were called by the ball. He was short, but his tiny limbs were strong and had athletic angles that Kageyama knew, after many years of volleyball observation and experience, were all but perfectly crafted for the sport they both lived in.

His core was tight and perfectly balanced for running and diving, although he had no experience diving and they didn’t really have a real opportunity to practice that since they’d been outside mostly this week. His hands were small but powerful, and moved with a fidgety grace that screamed of energy and assurance despite his lack of skill.

Most impressively, was the few times Kageyama had seen him jump.

He’d seen it in middle school, and something about it made his breath stutter in his chest. The fluid motion, the wild speed and uncontrollable nature of it seemed off-putting, but it was like watching a stallion run free across an open plain, or jaguar sprint playfully through the jungle forest unconcerned by thoughts of anyone ever beating its ferocious claws. It was something natural and free, unrefined and raw, but awe inspiring in its own overwhelming way.

Maybe that was why he had a tiny orange bird on his palm. Even when he’d been purposefully not looking at the world around him, Kageyama had still seen Hinata fly, soaring over his clouded, one-dimensional world like a flickering burst of light and feathers.

He’d seen it, and he’d remembered, despite how brief and fleeting it had been and how forgettable everything else was.

That didn’t mean he was that great of a volleyball player, but Kageyama found himself pausing slightly before lashing out another insult about how lousy his new unwilling partner was. He himself was well rounded because he’d trained relentlessly to be so, but he knew when facing certain opponents that sometimes people had these… _talents_ that even his hard work couldn’t overcome when put head to head. Some people could dive farther, stretch more flexibly, could see more clearly when at the top of the net and _aim_ where they wanted to go almost by instinct.

Hinata’s ability, his weapon, wasn’t something Kageyama would be able to overcome at face value, should they ever become opponents again. Of course he was quick enough to figure out a way around it, but head to head… Hinata was a strength all his own, and he always seemed to _accidentally_ succeed, not from anything he’d done himself but by sheer physical ability and some uncanny gut instincts.

How was he supposed to predict or counter a sheer force of nature? How the hell was he supposed to fly farther or run faster than someone who seemed to have wings on their feet?

He realized, the night before their practice match, that the only thing that could keep up with Hinata, was the ball he held in his hands. The dumbass wouldn’t know what to do with it once he got it but…

Kageyama did.

He could work with that.

000

If there was one thing Kageyama knew, it was that Tsukishima Kei was an asshole.

People who though _he_ was a jerk had never met that tall blonde bastard, obviously.

At this point it was almost like a pattern he didn’t want to face the reality of, but it couldn’t be helped. He realized that every time he came home shaking, his marks were going to change whether he wanted them too or not. And he sure as hell was shaking in rage and about ten other emotions he couldn’t place the night before the practice match, after facing his new opponent in the park with that little snickering side-kick of his.

Rage at Tsukishima, shame at… everything, the humiliation and pain of memories he’d all but buried by now, and also… a little soft feeling in his stomach that made him want to let out a slightly hysterical laugh and throw up at the same time when Hinata had stayed for another two hours to practice.

He wasn’t sure he could call what Hinata did ‘standing up for him’ since he didn’t think Hinata really understood the gravity of their confrontation but… he’s stayed.

He didn’t know what it meant or what he was supposed to feel about it, but Hinata had stayed.

Before Kageyama had even managed to stumble into his apartment door, he’d glanced down at his palm to see individual feathers taking shape on the orange bird in his grasp. His numb brain noted they were alarmingly intricate considering most markings didn’t develop such nice details until they were out of their teens, at least. The bird was something like a lark or one of those little song birds he saw in the trees sometimes. And was it bigger too, now that he looked at it?

Whatever, he had other things to focus on.

He dropped his bag by the front door and marched miserably to his bathroom, the shaking in his shoulders making his vision slightly blurry.

Not one to avoid things, but rather face them head-on, he got to his mirror and ripped off his shirt carelessly.

He didn’t care, is what he told himself. Actually, he was a little alarmed by how _little_ it affected him, but he figured he was probably in shock maybe? Everything felt numb and he most certainly wasn’t surprised or shocked by it. The entire walk home the slowly dawning realization that he wasn’t ok had been building in his stomach, and by now he was too tired to care.

Kageyama couldn’t remember when he’d realized it, but somehow in the past several months he’d come to the realization that he just wasn’t ok. It was like realizing he’d been born defective—there was no epiphany moment or sudden strike of inspiration, he’d just sort of gotten used to being this way and looked up one day to realize that this was his life now. He had no understanding of it and no way to fix it, even if he knew what was wrong, so he accepted it and moved on.

Fact was, he wasn’t ok.

That’s just how it was. 

And with that deadened thought, he turned away from the mirror and readied to take a shower, knowing tomorrow would be a very important day for Hinata and himself—the day that would decide their fate on the volleyball court for the next three years, and possibly the rest of their lives too. He felt that maybe he should focus on that instead, but his brain felt fuzzy and he was really just… tired.

He went to bed and was out the minute he closed his eyes— telling himself firmly that the volleyball on his chest that had cracked clean in two was already forgotten.

000

"Hey, Kageyama,"

The setter paused in taking a drink from his water bottle to take note of the orange-haired shrimp next to him. Hinata’s expression was uncharacteristically serious as he frowned at his own bottle thoughtfully.

"What?" he demanded, slightly annoyed the guy seemed to be preoccupied over something that _wasn’t_ volleyball at this moment. They only had an hour before the team showed up and their practice match began, so they needed to be _focusing_ damn it and—

"Why don't you have any markings?"

Had he taken a drink of his water, it would’ve made a reappearance.

As it was, his mouth dropped open in slight shock and he turned on the boy beside him with a partly shocked, but mostly angry glare.

"Dumbass, it's rude to ask things like that." He hissed venomously.

"Sorry!" Hinata squeaked, jumping a little and holding up his water bottle in front of his face as if trying to use it as a shield from the irate setter. "I was just curious! You're always all covered up but this morning you finally took off your sweater."

Kageyama blinked, looking down and realizing that he had indeed taken off his longer layers in the hotter-than-usual morning air. He’d been so focused on preparing for their match it hadn’t even crossed his mind that there was a reason he’d been suffering through their training in a sweater all week.

It all came crashing back _real_ quick though, and he felt himself pale.

Whatever face he was making caused the fear to slip off Hinata’s own expression, soon replaced by something like realization, curiosity, and a little bit of mischief.

"Bakayama, were you  _hiding_  the fact you have no markings!?" He started to smirk, and the setter felt his cheeks flame.

"Shut up you stupid toad!"

"Sorry, sorry!" Hinata jumped back again at the loud shout, once more startled and hiding behind his water bottle, but now grinning wickedly. "It's just so perfect! I thought you were too good to feel insecure." He teased mercilessly as if this were just another thing they bickered about this week.

Except that it wasn’t.

_If only you knew,_ Kageyama thought bitterly, but he swallowed it and forced his expression to go back to being blank, even if it took a huge amount of effort to do so. 

"It puts people off." He answered tensely as if that explained it. It was _an_ explanation, even if it wasn’t the whole picture.

"You mean even more than your personality already does?"

The spiker yet again jumped out of hitting range at the fierce glare he was at the receiving end of, just in case Kageyama went for blood.

"Shut up." He muttered, unsure how to feel about the peal of giggles Hinata let out as his expense, seeming to be highly entertained by his setter’s reaction.

At least… he didn’t seem upset by it or turned off. If anything Hinata seemed to find it funny, which Kageyama thought he should been angry about but… he wasn’t. He didn’t know _how_ to feel and at that moment, he felt nothing.

He’d been half expecting this conversation to physically hurt him, but it didn’t.

So, he sighed silently and relented to satisfying Hinata’s curiosity. They’d get nowhere with practice if the little spiker wanted to press this issue, so he figured getting it all out there quickly would be the least painful option—like ripping a band aid off.

"I wasn't going to hide it forever, but I didn't want the club to think I was a freak before I was even on the team." He announced like it was a casual thing to do, even if it so totally _wasn’t._ He even took a swig of his water in an attempt to look more natural than he felt, and after his drink he paused, glancing to look at Hinata’s wide-eyed expression. There was still no pain, even after admitting that much, to which he felt a little flicker of relief. The tension that had appeared in his shoulder eased away slightly, and he nodded to himself. "You're not on the team yet either so you don't count."

"So mean," Hinata harrumphed a little, sticking his tongue out to show what he thought of that comment. "And I already knew you had no markings. I noticed in our match last year." He reminded the setter, either oblivious to or ignoring the suddenly strained look on Kageyama’s face as he took a drink from his own bottle. "It did freak my teammates out, but I didn't really think much about it. I was too preoccupied with trying to beat you." He commented conversationally, a flicker of a frown marring his lips as he recalled the difficult match.

Kageyama wanted to hit him and walk away at the same time, but just barely managed to do neither.

"You did a pathetic job of it." He scowled darkly instead.

"Hey!" The objecting shout to his insults was nearly automatic at this point. "I was just wondering if there was a reason, now that I can actually talk to you for real." Hinata pressed forward, and Kageyama felt his stomach flip.

“A reason?”

“Yeah, a reason you have no marks.”

The setter wanted nothing more for this conversation to end, but… for some reason found himself talking again, his lips moving as if they’d decided to commit mutiny against him.

"There's no particular reason." He nearly flinched as soon as the words came out, but forced his expression to remain blank. He quickly cleared his throat and clarified. "I was just born this way."

"Oh." The short spiker blinked. "That makes sense."

Kageyama stared at him.

"It does?"

Belatedly he realized that was his outside voice and not just a startled thought kept safe inside his mind.

"Well sure!” Hinata perked up with a big grin. “Everyone has different amounts and colors of markings. I think it makes sense there's someone out there with just a few." 

Kageyama kept staring at him as if he’d grown another head. "You'd be the first person to think that way."

"Do they ever change?"

He really did flinch that time, and he couldn’t stop it.

"No." He admitted, his voice getting a fraction weaker as if the strain of the conversation was finally getting to him. "They've only changed once since I got them." He admitted, something scarily close to defeat settling in his chest as he felt the words coming easily—like he had no choice but to give them up and let Hinata see the truth for what it was.

He hated that feeling.

It was the same sensation he got talking to his mom. The prickly feeling in his throat and the ten-pound weight around his heart making a submissive, obedient side he tried not to let show come through for the whole world to see, making his skin feel raw and exposed.

He hated it.

"Cool!"

He blinked.

“What do you mean, ' _cool'!?"_ He blurted out, blinking rapidly at the suddenly hyper-excited boy who’d gotten back up unto his face excitedly. 

"It means you're consistent, right?” Hinata pushed insentiently, and Kageyama had no idea how to take this information.

"I... guess so?" 

"It means your personality hasn't changed in all this time, doesn't it? I think that makes your reliable." Hinata declared boldly, planting his feet and putting his hands on his hips confidently. “That’s what my mom says at least.” He tacked on as an afterthought with a slightly abashed grin to accompany his little laugh of amusement.

"I don't care what markings mean, I care about volleyball." He spat out instinctually, blurting out the truth as was his habit. Before that bad habit could get him in trouble with the one person he needed to get onto the volleyball team with, he changed the subject about as subtly as someone abandoning a sinking ship. "Break's over; back to receiving!"

Thankfully Hinata seemed to deem volleyball an acceptable distraction and lit right up, downing another drink from his bottle and tossing it to the ground as he darted a couple of yards away to get back into position as Kageyama picked up their forgotten ball.

"One more!" He beamed excitedly.

"That's what I'm doing, dumbass." He muttered as he spun the ball in his hands and prepared to serve it.

"Shut up, Bakayama!" 

For once not willing to argue, he shut his mouth and tossed the ball, pushing the whole markings debate from his mind and once again losing himself to the game.

000

“Hey, Kageyama?”

“ _What_ , Hinata?”

 _Why is he so talkative this morning!?_ The setter complained to himself as they stretched—training now done and them taking a break before they had to go in and play for real. Any minute now, their senpais and fellow first year opponents would appear and the match would begin.

Kageyama did not _do_ “nervous”.

But his stomach sort of felt like it was about to toss his breakfast back at him any moment now.

Hinata seemed to sense his mood, but either didn’t care or was trying to distract himself from his own nerves. He cleared his throat awkwardly as he leaned over from where they lay in the grass to try and touch his toes—and he was having a lot more luck than Kageyama himself was having since apparently he was annoyingly flexible as well as athletic.

“I didn’t mean to say it like you had _no_ markings because you _do_ have a few. I was just wondering…”

The dark haired setter gave a long-suffering sigh, too wound up about the match to give a shit about his damn markings right now.

“How many I really did have?” He finished the question dryly.

“Sort of.” Hinata admitted, and then jumped a little. “Are you mad!?” He yelped, stopping stretching to watch warily for the moment his partner lost it and tried to strangle him.

But Kageyama was beyond it at this point. He was actually a little surprised by how ineffectual the carrot-top’s questions were—it was like they were skating off his skin like water. Harmless and soothing, instead of painful and unwelcome.

“No.” He admitted, surprising even himself by how honest the answer was.

He didn’t trust his voice so, before he could think about what he was doing or let his emotions catch up with him and render him frozen and speechless, he reached for the hem of his shirt and slipped it off quickly.

It was a normal motion—one he made every day if not several times a day if he changed more than once—but all of a sudden he felt exposed and irritated and instantly regretting being the idiot that he was. He fumbled with the fabric in his hands to put it back on, when Hinata was suddenly crouched in front of him and _waaay_ too far into his personal bubble.

It stunned him enough to pause for a moment in shock, and it was a moment too long.

 _“Ooo,”_ The shorter boy hummed in bright-eyed interest. With Kageyama sitting in the grass from his forgotten stretch and Hinata crouching, the setter found himself looking up into his golden eyes and immediately disliked it immensely. Or maybe it was the fact said gaze was staring at his chest that made him flush uncomfortably as he flashed back to three long years of torture in middle school where everyone stared at his skin in a cold, judgmental sort of way.

Hinata’s gaze was… not cold. The exact opposite of cold actually, but instead lit up like the sun and filled with something like awe.

He wasn’t sure that was better.

“Is that a volleyball!?” The spiker asked eagerly. All Kageyama could do was nod back wordlessly, unable to trust his voice even a little bit at that moment. Hinata’s bright eyes… slowly dimmed. “Why… why is it cracked?”

Kageyama swallowed harshly, having expected the question but still unsure if he was ready to answer it.

He cleared his throat awkwardly, not sure how to answer the full story but at least knowing where to start.

“You heard Shityshima.” He muttered under his breath, looking past Hinata’s shoulder towards the gym behind him instead. Being as close as they were, the little spiker heard it clearly.

Hinata sat back, plopping down on the space of grass in front of his setter pointedly to catch his gaze once more, pressing his lips into a pouting frown.

“Being the King really bothers you that much?”

Kageyama’s cheeks got hot in mortification and… something else had no name for.

“As you can see, volleyball is about all I have.” He drawled, trying hard not to be bitter and absolutely failing. He distracted himself by slipping his shirt back on, cursing his _stupid_ self for doing such an impulsive, _stupid_ thing in the first place.

“Markings aren’t everything.”

Kageyama froze.

_Markings aren’t everything._

How many times had he said that to himself?

How many times had he been proven wrong?

How long as he dwelled over it and reassured himself with those same exact words?

How long have those words felt empty and hollow and more painful that admitting they were a lie?

He wanted to laugh and cry and shout at the same time.

But he did nothing.

“That sounds pretty empty coming from someone covered in them.” He deadpanned, voice empty and unfeeling. He just turned it off, unwilling to hear any more of… _this._ He just turned everything off so he didn’t have to feel or hear or see any of it anymore.

_Markings aren’t everything._

Lies.

All of it.

Markings were everything, and he had too few to matter to anyone else.

Markings were everything, and therefore, he meant nothing.

_Markings aren’t everything._

“Mine don’t change either.”

Kageyama looked up, and was struck again by a flicker of light—like a sunbeam peeking through dark curtains and momentarily blinding you. It felt familiar… like he’d felt this way before.

Ah, of course.

That day, so long ago now, when a wild little boy has darted past him and _flown_.

A firework, a single burst of light in an otherwise dark, muted, monochromatic world. A world where everything he felt was under ten meters of cold, dark, sea water and the sun struggled hard to break through the layers of ocean over his head, to let him see the light or feel even a flicker of its warmth. Everything was smooth and rhythmic and turbulent like the sea, predictable and unstoppable, so he went along for the ride, not caring that it was cold and dark and lonely floating along way down there.

For the second time in his life, he looked up to where the sea met the sky, so far above his head.

And was met with a warm, soft orange drifting happily over a kind, topaz-colored gaze that shot through him like the gem itself.

Hinata found whatever expression he was wearing funny, and laughed quietly to himself. He leaned forward and offered Kageyama his hand—not to take, but to show him what was written there across his skin.

Kageyama had never looked at his markings, and he didn’t want to. Now though, he was drawn in and his opened eyes _saw._

A golden crown.

It was the color of pure gold, right down to the metallic glint in the morning sun, and filled up most of his palm proudly. It was outlined in a rich, bloody, velvet red that spilled out in spiraling lines across his palm and fingers, wrapping around his hand and curling up his wrist to stop mid-forearm in a pointed, regal twist.

“This one’s changed twice, but the rest have been the same since I got them. People used to say I had stunted growth or something since I didn’t get any taller either.” Hinata informed him, oblivious to the minor heart-attack Kageyama was having right then and chatting normally. “It’s also the newest one I have—it’s yours!”

The setter flinched.

He didn’t want to be a king anymore.

“Mine!?” He half whimpered, half sighed in awe and fear. Did Hinata hate him for branding him with a crown?! He’d thought that was all over now, but here he was… did he push Hinata too hard?! Was that it!?

What had he done!?

“Yeah. I got it from our match.” Was his answer, and Kageyama tried to slow his breathing. He glanced up warily… and didn’t _see_ any resentment or hate in the spiker’s eyes, only…

Determination.

Fire.

Kageyama was pretty sure ‘fire’ was not an emotion, but who was he to say? He was pretty emotionally stunted as it was.

At this moment he didn’t consider it… _bad_ exactly. He didn’t know _what_ to think of it but… Hinata wasn’t running away or calling him out on something, so he figured he wasn’t screwing this up too badly just yet and that maybe he’d be forgiven for the crown this time. Or Hinata would let it slide until after they both made the team, which seemed more logical—if Kageyama could believe this little spiker was the _logical_ sort of person to think such things.

He didn’t really know what he should be doing in this moment—apologizing? Saying ‘thank you’? Asking for forgiveness?

He didn’t know.

But… he did know he had an answer to Hinata’s steady, almost challenging gaze. It was like the ginger boy wanted a rebuttal to what he’d put out there, and for once, Kageyama actually had something to offer back.

So for that one moment, he swallowed his pride—literally swallowing the golf ball that had appeared in his throat—and offered up his own palm to hover in the air beside Hinata’s, comparing the markings scrawled across each other their skin.

He was startled to see the orange bid had moved once again, because although he tried not to look most days, he was fairly certain he’d looked at it last night, and it hadn’t been quite that large or quite that detailed, not to mention it was flying in the opposite direction it had been. Now it’s feathers were almost defined in photographic-like detail, the undersides of the exposed wings as the bird took flight colored like topaz—right down to the fractured, refracting-like, crystalline quality that precious gems had. It was not entirely unlike the shattered emerald on his chest, only this was a newly colored jewel he’d never seen colored on his skin before, much less a gem carved into the dozens of tiny, intricate shapes that made a bird’s flowing flight feathers.

Hinata didn’t seem to notice his own surprise, his own shock flickering across his gaze.

 “Is that…?”

“Yep.” He said tensely, swallowing once more for good measure to make sure his voice didn’t crack. “Told you I didn’t forget you.” He said quietly, almost as if trying to make sure Hinata _didn’t_ hear him.

But he had no such luck, as his wide gaze ripped away from the bird in front of him to lock back onto his own blue eyes intensely.

“Hey, Kageyama.”

The setter wanted to face-palm, but settled for sighing wearily.

“What is it now?”

“We’re going to win today.”

Kageyama blinked in surprise, really _looking_ at the face in front of him once more.

The fire was back in those earthy eyes, but this time… Kageyama felt it flickering to life over his own face as well, a fire of _something_ that made him want to get up and start running for all he was worth spreading like water over his body and getting his bones riled up and shaking in an internal earthquake.

His palm _burned_ , but it… didn’t feel bad.

He clenched it in a tight, determined fist, and let his hand drop. He nodded once, and his lips curled in an unfamiliar way as a strange floating feeling seeming to hijack his cheeks.

“Hell yeah we are.”


End file.
